The present invention relates to information providing apparatuses for installation in moving objects such as vehicles and, more particularly, to a technology that enables information providing modes to be suitably altered depending on a traveling status of a vehicle.
In recent years, attempts have heretofore been made to use an information providing apparatus in which a portable phone is mounted in a vehicle to allow the portable phone to receive an information content (such as image information and music information) of various kinds, via a network system, which is provided to a driver of the vehicle or other vehicle occupant. With such an information providing apparatus, the information content of the various kinds received with the portable phone is provided to the driver or the other vehicle occupant for perusal to allow suitable selection obtaining a desired information content. In an event that music performance information is received as the information content, received information is reproduced as music in the vehicle.
Further, various structures are known which, when selecting a desired content among a plurality of contents, a monitor is rendered to provide a display of the various contents to allow a desired content to be selected through operation of the selection switches. With such information providing method, the driver is likely to stare the screen of the monitor during driving of the vehicle. To address such an issue, nowadays, another approach is made to provide a method to allow the plural contents to be consecutively read out in a sequential fashion while providing a display of the read-out content. The use of such a method is effective to avoid a probability of the driver tending to stare the monitor screen.